"A Father's Story"
In some ways this story sneaks up on you. The man telling the story is in his fifties and he talks about his previous life with his wife and four children, and his life now, after his wife left and took the children. Twelve years after she left, the children are grown although his youngest, a daughter, is only twenty and still visits him once a year and meets her old friends in the area. All of a sudden the story switches to a traumatic event that happened when his daughter visited, and tells about that event and how it has affected his life and hers since then. Religion and morality play a big part in this story. Of course, family relationships also have a role.
I liked the story, although I could not fully relate to it. I love the author's writing, and how he tells the story.
This story is collected in Selected Stories of Andre Dubus, originally published in 1988. There are 23 stories by Andre Dubus II (1936–1999) in this book. Not to be confused with his son, Andre Dubus III, who is also a writer of novels and short stories.
I first learned about this author at Patricia Abbott's blog in these posts on two other stories... "Leslie in California" and "The Winter Father."
I tried to find any book of the author's short stories at last year's book sale but failed. This year, I was lucky and found this book on the last day.
This was my first experience reading anything by that author. I will be reading more stories from this collection.
